Army, interagency, industry and local leaders unite at inaugural DCI Summit

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Army announced the secretary of the Army's inaugural Defense Critical Infrastructure Summit, uniting federal, state, local and private-sector leaders to forge a unified "whole-of-nation" approach to defending the infrastructure that powers Army readiness. The XVIII Airborne Corps hosted the summit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

The summit brought together more than two dozen senior leaders from across the federal interagency — including the FCC, CISA, the Energy Department, the Justice Department, the Transportation Department and the FAA — together with industry executives from Duke Energy, Brightspeed, Sandhills Utility Services and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, as well as North Carolina state and local officials and senior Army leaders.

Adversaries have pre-positioned in U.S. critical infrastructure with the intent to disrupt America's ability to mobilize and project force leveraging cyber means, which are in addition to physical and UAS threats faced. Because the Army depends on privately owned utilities serving its installations, the summit emphasized that critical infrastructure protection is a shared responsibility requiring sustained collaboration.

"We went after the physical threats from drones, cyber impacts, force projection dependencies, and information sharing lag, and we worked with these partners to start conversations that we think will have a deep impact on our nation's security. All of this is because of President [Donald] Trump and Secretary of War [Pete] Hegseth's air cover and mandate for the United States Army to innovate and change as quickly as humanly possible, to continue to protect our Soldiers, their families and the civilians and communities where they operate," said Dan Driscoll, secretary of the Army.

"The threat to defense critical infrastructure is real, persistent, and growing. The Army has approximately 288 camps, posts, and stations, and the overwhelming majority of them rely on privately owned utilities — power, water, natural gas and so on. Disruption of these services can interfere with our ability to move forces and equipment in a time of need. This is a no-fail mission and a national security imperative," said Brandon Pugh, principal cyber advisor to the secretary of the Army.

"We cannot just assume the utilities like gas, water and electric will always be there. A big part of this summit was asking the hard questions to make Fort Bragg more resilient across the board. How do we better secure our infrastructure and build redundancy in case something happens? Whether it is our power grid, water supply or wastewater removal, we must have the right partnerships in place to collaborate and defend our critical infrastructure." said Lt. Gen. Gregory Anderson, commanding general of the XVIII Airborne Corps.

"This is where this country projects our strength. In a matter of hours, or sometimes less, [we] need to get people loaded up and going anywhere in the world, and so we have to make sure that connectivity continues, the critical infrastructure that feeds into this facility continues," said Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

"What we saw today was really resilience in action — leaders from across our nation's military, from our government at all levels, and from private-sector partners coming together to solve common challenges before they become crises. Resilience can't be achieved by any one organization acting alone. It requires a sustained partnership from across government and industry working together," said Nick Andersen, acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

"Energy security is national security. Through our new partnership with the Department of War — Project Armor — we are rapidly assessing and hardening the critical energy infrastructure essential to both economic strength and national defense. Events like this summit are critical to ensuring we deliver the most affordable, reliable and secure energy system for the American people and our warfighters," said Alex Fitzsimmons, acting under secretary of energy at the Department of Energy.

"At Duke Energy, we understand that energy resilience is essential to mission readiness. We are proud to partner with the U.S. Army to help ensure Fort Bragg has the reliable, resilient power it needs to support national defense. Preparing for and responding to high-stakes events like the issues we discussed today takes trust, coordination, and a shared commitment to getting it right," said Kodwo Ghartey-Tagoe, executive vice president and chief executive officer of Duke Energy Carolinas and Natural Gas Business at Duke Energy Corporation.

The lessons learned and relationships built from the summit will be leveraged in two ways: assisting XVIII Airborne Corps to move forward on any identified challenges and continuing partnerships with interagency and industry to scale the DCI initiative across the Army.

The summit will generate the foundation for a DCI playbook to guide ongoing collaboration, identify and remove regulatory and contractual barriers, and build lasting partnerships across the interagency, industry, and state and local governments.

A replay of the Defense Critical Infrastructure Summit media announcement is available on DVIDS. Public remarks begin at the 35:00 mark.